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Journal of Education & Social Sciences - Volume 7, Issue 2 2019
By Noman Islam, Ghazala Shafi Sheikh, Ridah Fatima, Farrukh Alvi
10.20547/jess0721907203
Programming has been a challenging subject for computer science students. A programmer must have strong analytical and reasoning skills to program effectively. In order to inculcate such skills, instructor must prepare their lectures accordingly and employ several novel techniques to develop analytical and problem solving skills into the students. Despite the strong need, there have not been any studies to identify the major challenges faced by programming students. Such a study can help instructor in development of appropriate materials and planning of lectures accordingly. To fulfill this gap, this work performs a survey of 57 students who just completed their first programming course. Students were asked to fill a questionnaire. The questionnaire was analyzed further to determine what are the most challenging concepts for students to learn and when do the students feel most comfortable learning. The correlations among students response were determined and k-mode clustering was also performed. Based on analysis, several recommendations were drawn. These recommendations can help instructor to develop their learning material. The paper concludes that flipped/ inverted class room model is the most appropriate model for teaching programming course.